November 25, 2017

Wreck of San Juan may be on difficult slope

An image mostly of undersea depths - The magenta dot marks the approximate location of ARA San Juan's suspected explosion and/or "crush depth" implosion. The explosion point is on the seafloor east of Argentina's Valdes Peninsula and less than 64 kms from where San Juan last radio contacted the Argenetine Navy. This is at the outer rim of the continental shelf (averaging about 200 metres deep) - then down the slope where the seafloor depth is around 1,000 metres, then even deeper.

If San Juan's wreck, or small remaining fragments, lie deeper than 400 metres and are on an unstable slope San Juan will be more difficult to find and retrieve. The above laser/sonar produced image is probably from the US Navy and comes via a Brazilian website released 24 November 2017.

A similar precedent is the sinking of US submarine Thresher in 1963. Some analysts concluded Thresher
suffered an electrical failure. Thresher's subsequent crush depth implosion was
detected by hydrophones of the US’s then highly secret SOSUS network.
The locations of hydrophone arrays in the US’s current SOSUS network remain highly secret and have been relabeled under the broader term Integrated Undersea Surveillance System (IUSS).

SOSUS networks have also been constructed by Russia (for 60 years eg. in the Arctic Ocean) and China (for 30 years from a low start, now growing in the South China Sea).

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